Apr 6, 2018
R&T Committee endorses proposed Northeastern goose regs
DFW Senior Environmental Scientist Melanie Weaver addresses CWA's Regulations and Traditions Committee on April 6, 2018, about proposed regulation changes for 2018-19. Seated to her right is CWA President John Carlson, Jr.
Proposed new Northeastern Zone goose regulations won the endorsement of the California Waterfowl Regulations and Traditions Committee and the CWA Board today.
The proposed regulations, which go to the California Fish and Game Commission April 19 for final approval for 2018-19, would do the following in the Northeastern Zone:
• Bring white-fronted goose seasons in sync with white goose seasons.
• Create a longer late goose season for those species.
• Carve out a Special Management Area in the Klamath Basin that would be exempted from those changes to allow more public land goose hunting opportunity. (The Tule Lake and Lower Klamath national wildlife refuges, which would be in the Special Management Area, are not open to hunting during the late goose seasons.)
Under these regs, these would be season dates everywhere in Northeastern except the new Special Management Area:
• White geese and whitefronts would be open Oct. 6-Dec.2, Jan. 5-18,and Feb. 6-March 10—a total of 105 days.
• Other dark geese would be open Oct. 6-Jan. 13 (100 days).
Proposed Klamath Basin Special Management Area
The limits remain 20 white geese per day and 10 dark geese with no more than two of them being large Canada geese.
In addition, the committee and board endorsed a proposal to raise the pintail daily bag limit back to two in 2018-19. This move is allowed by federal frameworks that were established late in 2017.
The Regulations and Traditions Committee is one of several ways that California Waterfowl involves members in its public policy efforts. Click here to learn more and sign up to join us.
